An artificial intelligence algorithm has outperformed humans in a reading comprehension test for the first time, potentially putting millions of customer service jobs at risk of automation. The AI algorithm, developed by Chinese retail giant Alibaba, outscored humans in the Stanford Question Answering Dataset--a global reading test consisting of more than 100,000 questions. Using natural-language processing, the machine-learning model developed by Alibaba's Institute of Data Science of Technologies beat rival humans with a score of 82.44 versus 82.305, the company said. According to the researchers, the landmark result could have a significant impact in introducing the technology into roles typically performed by humans, as the AI algorithm can provide precise answers to questions when provided with vast amounts of information from resources like Wikipedia. "That means objective questions such as'What causes rain' can now be answered with high accuracy by machines," Luo Si, chief scientist for natural language processing at the Institute of Data Science of Technologies, said in a statement.